What’s it like to be in the Blue Jays bubble?

The Blue Jays have officially kicked off intrasquad games. Lindsay Dunn speaks to the players about not only adjusting their routines inside Rogers Centre, but how they'll play the game without fans.

By Lindsay Dunn

“You can’t take me out to the ball game, you can’t take me out with the crowd, nobodies eating peanuts or cracker jacks, all I care is if I ever get back, to let me root, root ,root for the home team.”

That is a modified version of the classic song ‘Take Me Out To The Ball Game’ if we were to make it more 2020 appropriate.

The Blue Jays are back in Toronto for their training camp and played their first intra-squad game on Thursday night.

It’s an eerie feeling being inside the Rogers Centre with no fans, just a handful of media members and Blue Jays staff.

Baseball fans know the sound, it’s soothing, the sound of the bat connecting with the ball and the energy that comes after the player and fans watch together the ball float over the wall.

Bo Bichette hit the Jays first home run of 2020 in the Rogers Centre on Thursday night, to crickets. The sound of the bat echoed like never before because there were no fans for the noise to bounce off of.

“When the season starts we will have to create our own adrenaline,” Bichette told reporters. “I guess we are practicing that now because there isn’t a lot of adrenaline when you are facing your own teammates, it’s more of a practice scenario.”

Some lucky fans were able to watch the game from their nearby balcony.

There was one familiar sound, when the players would go up to bat, their walk-up song would play, but that hum that normally takes over the stadium when the player steps up into the box, to get the first pitch, now silent.

‘We could hear guys talking in the stands or somebody’s phone ringing,” Pitcher Matt Shoemaker said. “As a pitcher though when you get to the mound you are in the zone so you don’t hear anything anyways.”

Getting into the Rogers Centre for the approved media you have a list of safety measures you have to go through, including everything being wiped down and sanitized multiple times, answering multiple COVID-19 related questions, and of course, your mask must be on at all times.

The Jays are staying in the hotel connected to Rogers Centre and if they leave the bubble created for them, under the federal Quarantine Act, they could face up to a $750,000 fine or jail time.

Bichette said he won’t have a problem following those guidelines.

“For me it’s no different than during a regular season. I’m a homebody. I get to the field, I do my work and then I go home and chill. So for me, it isn’t much different but there definitely will have to be some discipline from the team. Everyone staying inside and, not only making sure we are keeping ourselves healthy but the entire team.

The plus side of the intrasquad games, the Blue Jays always win.

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